


Victims of Circumstance - 19/20 – Blood and Betrayal

by motsureru



Series: Victims of Circumstance [19]
Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, M/M, Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-04
Updated: 2008-03-04
Packaged: 2017-11-11 18:16:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/481437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/motsureru/pseuds/motsureru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers for Season 1 and Season 2.  This is a <b><span>sequel</span> </b>to <i>Any Other Night</i>, which is a <b><span>sequel</span></b> to <i>Broken Glass. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Victims of Circumstance - 19/20 – Blood and Betrayal

**Author's Note:**

> An enormous amount of thanks to [](http://etoile-dunord.livejournal.com/profile)[**etoile_dunord**](http://etoile-dunord.livejournal.com/), who edits my commas and makes me happy doing it.

**Teaser _:_**   _The melody of the hunt and the kill was something Sylar had missed most dearly.  
  
  
_

.19Blood and Betrayal

 

The melody of the hunt and the kill was something Sylar had missed most dearly. As he was now, the death of an average citizen might have stirred in him the stagnant guilt that refused to be drained from within, but the guards to a Company that had robbed Sylar of what was important to him elicited no such pity or remorse. He felt alive in ways only Mohinder’s body had made him feel in the past months, and privately Sylar now relished in the opportunity to make the night his own again.

Of course, Sylar had not envisioned his chance to hunt again to be back to back with his former rival, Peter Petrelli. They stood amidst a dark gathering of trees near the side entrance to the Company’s Hartsdale facility, Sylar keeping careful note of patrolling units as they made their way around the building. The first few were easy targets; Sylar listened to their footsteps around either corner and as the guards approached, Sylar directed Peter’s attacks.

“Five paces from the corner,” he’d state. Sylar alone used his distinctive hearing, rather than flip whatever switch in Peter that might trigger his mimicry of Sylar’s powers. He’d rather work with abilities fully in his control than give Peter the chance to suffer a migraine that left the man incapacitated. Zane had first experienced that pain, and Peter would be useless in that position. 

Sylar listened as Peter’s attacks slammed each man into the brick wall of the building, knocking them unconscious. Sylar was not so merciful. Using his telekinesis as though it were his hands themselves, Sylar waited patiently for the sound of guards on his own side, and as the men rounded his corner there was a sickening **CRUNCH** as he simply caved in their skulls and used his gift to drag their bodies off somewhere more covert in the bushes. Peter wasn’t looking, which was fortunate. Peter’s idealism, Sylar was sure, would carry over into the amnesiac innocent he currently was.

“How much longer are we going to keep this up?” Peter asked tensely, glancing toward the building at their sides. “Is the second wave of guards coming yet?”

Sylar sighed in aggravation. “Almost. They’re coming now check on the first. Once we take them out we can head inside without them activating the alarms. The inner guards will be mixed up looking for the rest rather than worrying about who we are. It’ll be better to do this with as little fuss as possible.” At times, it wasn’t Sylar’s style in particular either, he knew, to be subtle, but this situation had something greater at stake and Sylar couldn’t afford to be hasty.

“They’re coming. This is the last group,” Sylar stated, cracking his fingers softly. “Ten paces for you.” But only four for him. Sylar brought the next two men down quickly and flung the bodies unceremoniously behind the trees. He heard the groans of pain that meant Peter had disposed of his own bothers, and Sylar turned around to look at the man. “I’ll call Bennet and let him know we’re ready to head in.” As Sylar drew out Mohinder’s cell phone and pressed it to his ear, Peter nodded, floating the bodies of their enemies more gently than Sylar had into a covert area. 

“Bennet, we’re ready. Come around the side,” Sylar said, glancing towards Peter’s body dump. Just to be cautious, he listened briefly for movement, since Peter was not wise enough to put the guards down permanently.

Suddenly, there was a sharp noise, metal grating against metal, and Peter and Sylar looked up quickly to see the side door to the building open, a guard unexpectedly emerging. He laid eyes on the two, obviously suspicious, and immediately drew his gun. The Company took no risks, it seemed.

“Hey, you two! What’s your business here?!” he demanded, cocking the gun and prepared to fire.

Peter opened his mouth to speak, but Sylar was too fast.

Sylar drew a hand up and, in one smooth, swiping motion, gave the man a clean incision across the throat. There was a choked, garbled noise, interrupted by the sudden pulse of scarlet pouring out from the wound on his neck. The guard dropped his gun and fell to the ground, fingers moving to clutch at the slice in a valiant, but ultimately futile attempt to stop the gush of blood.

Watching dispassionately as the man toppled over, his body pumping a broad puddle of crimson around him, Sylar said nothing. But Peter was watching with a horrified expression.

“Y-You… how could you do that?!” he exclaimed breathlessly, tearing his eyes away from the body to look at Sylar. He grabbed Sylar by the jacket and shook him roughly, once, expression turning from disbelief into outright anger, incensed at Sylar’s ruthlessness. “Why would you do that?! We could have knocked him out! We could have-”

Sylar slapped away Peter’s hands, mouth set in a grim line. “There was no time. It’s kill or be killed, Petrelli, and we’re not both going to come back from a bullet wound,” he said flatly.

Peter opened his mouth to speak again, but was halted by the sound of Bennet and the Haitian stepping through the trees. “What’s the problem?” Bennet asked, straightening his jacket. When he stopped at their sides, the man tilted his head, peering around them at the corpse. He perked an eyebrow, looking back to the two men.

“THAT is the problem!” Peter insisted, motioning towards the body soaking in a pool of its own blood. “Sylar killed him! He didn’t have to!” Peter said vehemently, dark eyes focused in a glare on the taller man. Sylar regarded him with a cool gaze.

Bennet gave an irritated sigh, but kept it low. The last thing he needed, when they were this close, was an argument of ethics between Peter and Sylar. All he could do was dismiss it for now. “Sacrifices sometimes need to be made, Peter. We can talk about this afterwards.” When it wouldn’t matter any longer.

“No, I think we should talk about this now, before anyone el-”

“The time to act is now,” the Haitian interrupted seriously. “Before we lose our chance.”

The reluctant glare from Peter to Sylar spoke vividly of his disagreement, but this, as the Haitian pointed out, was rapidly becoming neither the time nor the place for second thoughts or hesitations. “Fine. Let’s go,” Peter said stiffly, motioning towards the building.

There was a grave look exchanged between Bennet and the Haitian that Sylar was not beyond catching. Sylar noticed, above all else, the tenseness that worked its way through the Haitian’s form, through a man usually so calm. Bennet, too, was plenty nervous, his heart pounding louder and more erratically than his voice let on. Peter was still angry; Sylar could hear his blood pumping furiously and he saw that the scowl on his face was complemented by clenched fists.

In light of his companions, Sylar should have felt more anxious. He should have felt more worried about the next hour of his life, like they did. But seeing these men, prepared for a battle that was not so much their own as it was the rest of the world’s, Sylar felt strangely calm, as if he knew for once exactly where he was meant to be at the given time. No painting, fearfully vague, had to reassure him of this.

Among the four of them, only Bennet and the Haitian had ever been proper companions. Only under the most extreme circumstances would the four of them ever ally themselves for a cause. Rightfully, each of them should have been, at one point or another, at one another’s throat.

But in the end, it seemed that each of them, no matter how at odds with one another, was a victim of circumstance. Although they had tried to rebuild their own lives out of what they could after KirbyPlaza, the inevitable hand of fate that the Company wielded so irresponsibly drew them all back into a nexus of uncertainty, forcing their hands in situations beyond their control. Each of their pieces would play across the board until they learned how to escape the game without being struck down first.

When Sylar’s thoughts were drawn back solely to himself and Mohinder, he felt suddenly weary. Up until their decision in Iowa to leave this country all together, their shaky bonds had been forged out of the scraps of lives torn apart; from beginning to end, from Chandra’s death to the beginning of a life together, they had merely been running from a greater power that would see them enemies. And yet, somehow, Mohinder had shown Sylar that they could take steps that strode forward confidently instead of steps that fled in fear. They could make something incredible rise from a sea of blood and betrayal, something that didn’t require this chaos and danger. Sylar wanted to trust in that, and no one, especially not the Company that had given them both so much grief, would ever stand in the way of the peace Sylar had tasted with Mohinder.

“I’m ready,” Sylar stated, voice low.

 

 

Mohinder had buried himself in the recent history of Adam Monroe’s blood. Rather, he had steeped himself in the case files from the past months in which the patients injected with the virus had _not_ died. Mohinder spent some time trying to figure out exactly why certain strains could be broken down by Adam’s blood, and why others resisted so fiercely. Hours of frustration had not helped, while Elle’s condition only declined.

When all other answers had failed, Mohinder gave a growl of defeat, one that was not met too kindly by Elle’s upset figure. During the times that she was awake, Elle watched Mohinder’s every move, feeling, with dread, how her life hung in the balance.

“Are you giving up?” she asked weakly, breath gasping a little. “You can’t do anything, can you?”

“Would you please just… just be quiet?” Mohinder requested, trying to be polite to her in spite of his own aggravation. “There’s still time. I just need to study Adam’s blood a little more.”

“They’ve had thirty years to study it, and what good has it done?” a familiar voice sounded from behind him.  
Mohinder looked up, only to see Sebastian standing in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest. Immediately a fiery loathing flared in Mohinder, and he glowered at the man. “I don’t need to hear your two cents. Get out,” he demanded.

Sebastian tilted his head to the side a little, uncrossing his arms to run a hand over his pale blonde hair. “I’m just doing my duty to check in, Mohinder. There’s no need to be so rude.” He smiled, but it was an underhanded, calculating smile. Mohinder hated the dishonesty behind it.

“Well, there’s nothing to be seen here. Go tell Bob he might get exactly what he wanted: to see how long this strain of the virus would take to kill a person.” Mohinder said the words absently, more spitefully than he wanted to, and aimed them at Sebastian with a hatred he didn’t have for his suffering patient. But she took the words very differently than Mohinder did.

“Y-You’re not giving up on me, are you?” Elle’s voice almost reduced itself to a whimper, her panic rising. “There has to be something, something you haven’t-”

Mohinder sighed and swore softly under his breath at what his anger had made him do. “No, Elle, I’m not, I just-”

“You can try anything, Doc, really,” Elle insisted, pale eyes wide and glassy, shaking her head. “Just mix me up a drug cocktail- Adam’s blood, yours, I don’t _care!_ Just don’t let me die, please…” she begged, reaching out a trembling hand towards Mohinder as though it might draw in his sympathy.

But Mohinder merely stared at the girl in wonder, eyes widening slightly. “What did you just…?” He trailed off, the gears in his head too busy turning to be bothered with completing his sentence. 

Suddenly Mohinder whirled back around to the countertop, and he pulled over his set of sterile needles. He grasped one tightly, pulling off the protective cap, and reached out for a tube of Adam’s blood. Puncturing the item hard, Mohinder drew a portion of the dark liquid out.

Sebastian had raised an eyebrow, entering the room a little further and leaning over to get a look at what Mohinder was doing. “What? What are you thinking, Mohinder?”

“Shut up and get me a vial of our formula. Fast,” Mohinder demanded, pulling closer one of the microscopes. He held the needle in one hand, using the other to take out a fresh glass slide. Sebastian disappeared in to the laboratory attached to Elle’s hospital room, only to reappear a moment later with a tube of clear, yellow liquid. He handed it wordlessly to Mohinder.

Snatching the item up, Mohinder plunged the needle inside, emptying the contents and muddying the liquid with red. Mohinder set the needle aside, then slowly turned the tube over and over between his fingers, gently mixing the insides.

“What are you doing…?” Elle asked softly.

“Yes, what _are_ you doing?” Sebastian said critically. “You don’t expect this to work, do you? You can’t just mix two things together and expect perfect results.” Sebastian leaned against the counter, crossing his arms again, eyes watching Mohinder work. Mohinder drew out a second needle and pulled some of the solution out, transferring it to a slide with slightly shaky fingers.

“Shut up, Sebastian,” was the only reply Mohinder gave to the man. He slipped a slide cover over the orange liquid and placed it beneath the microscope. Then Mohinder leaned in, eyes pressed close, and adjusted the scope, heart pounding.

A moment of silence passed. And then-

“My God…” Mohinder murmured softly, eyes rapidly scanning the sight before him. “Adam’s blood… it’s reinforcing my antibodies…” The very thought sent Mohinder’s mind in spirals; this blood defied all logic, like the gifts of so many others. How could a scientist be sure of anything’s impossibility with a resource such as this in his hands?

“That’s good, right?” Elle’s voice interrupted, eyes scanning the backs of the men next to the counter hopefully. “Doctor Suresh?”

Mohinder took his needle and slipped it back inside the orange liquid, pulling out a fair amount. He lifted the needle and gave it a testing squirt to eliminate the bubbles. “I want to try something, Elle,” he began, approaching her bed. “I think this might do some good… and if the other things they gave you didn’t harm you, this shouldn’t either.” At least, he thought so. “Just do it,” Elle breathed out, motioning towards the IV line already running into her hand for injections. She eyed Mohinder with anxiousness, a despair veiled in a thin, gauzy sheen of hope. All this girl had left was hope.

Mohinder held Elle’s hand steady, slipping the needle into place. He injected the solution slowly, eyes on Elle’s face the entire time. He watched her breathe, watched the subtle rise and fall of her chest and the part of her lips, watched the sticky hairs that clung to her forehead and cheeks. He wanted to see her rise, wanted to see her smile, wanted more than anything to have made a difference and saved a life; he wanted his work to have not been in vain. Mohinder wanted Elle to live to see another day.

The seconds ticked by, the three figures in the room waiting tensely.

Then, all at once, it seemed that there was a breath of fresh air in Elle’s lungs. She took a deep breath, and color seemed to flood into her face. Her skin, clammy and pallid, began to fill out again, returning to a warm, fleshy, natural hue. Elle’s eyes darted back and forth, looking down at her body beneath the sheets, and, slowly, she sat forward. “I feel…” she began, but stopped, lifting a hand. A soft tremor touched there, and then it halted. She held the appendage steady, strongly, and gazed at it with a child’s wonder.

Mohinder held his breath. He watched her astonishment with a small smile touching his face, his every hope revealing itself in this moment. “Elle… is it…?” He reached towards that outstretched hand and touched it. 

Mohinder was rewarded with a sharp sting and an electrical pulse that coursed from Elle’s fingertips and into his own. The jolt rose into the air in a loose arch and disappeared. Mohinder hissed and stumbled back, holding those stinging fingers with his other hand. They tingled, feeling raw and numb.

Elle’s face broke out into a brightness she had lacked before, a brightness Mohinder did not know could come to her face. She smiled ecstatically, giving several small, disbelieving gasps. “Y-You cured me…!” she said in wonderment. 

“I… I think I did,” Mohinder said, echoing her tone of incredulity, flexing his fingers, but frowning softly at her use of powers on him. Electricity? “I cured you on your suggestion, actually… I didn’t even think of mixing the two failed solutions to this problem… It’s no wonder the Company didn’t either.”

“That’s all it took?” Sebastian added with a note of agitation in his voice. He stepped back from Mohinder and Elle, turning to the vials that lay spread out on countertop. He grabbed the one of orange liquid, turning it over in his hand. Then Sebastian smiled.

“This is perfect, Mohinder. You’ve given us the answer to everything.” Sebastian looked back to find Mohinder spinning around to face him, looking angry.

“Excuse me?” Mohinder’s livid expression overruled his scientific wonder. “If you think I’m giving the Company this, you’re sadly mistaken, Sebastian,” Mohinder said fiercely. The kind of evil the Company could do having a true cure for any strain was beyond imagining.

Sebastian merely raised his eyebrows at the man, rolling the tube slowly between his fingertips. “Do you really think you can stop me, Mohinder?” Sebastian replied, tone dark. He stepped towards the doctor, tilting his head as though musing over the actions of a caged animal. “Something so simple- they already have your formula and samples of your blood, thanks to me. And Adam is locked cozily in the basement. Do you really think you can stop anything?”

Mohinder’s eyes widened in such a way that one could see easily the terror he felt for his own facilitation of this ugly future, actions that could not be reversed. He backed up slightly from that approach, hitting Elle’s bed when he did. The girl watched Sebastian too, but remained silent.

“Think about it, Mohinder,” Sebastian continued, gaze cool and unaffected. “You’ve given us everything we need to continue this research for decades. We can do more experiments, create newer, more powerful strains. We can even do _mass testing._ ” The man smirked at that, eyes narrowing. “You’ve given us the key to the end of this world and the beginning of a new one, _Doctor_ Suresh...”

Mohinder shook his head carefully, and slowly his gaze began to steel. “No… that key is not mine to give. And I won’t hand it to the likes of you,” he vowed gravely.

Sebastian gave a short laugh, and to Mohinder, he directed a decaying smile. “You already have, Mohinder. It’s too late, now.”

Something darker crossed Mohinder’s face then, and he shook his head once more. “It’s never too late, Sebastian.” In one quick motion Mohinder drew his hand up in a circular swoop. Sebastian had been expecting a punch, and flinched accordingly, but the strike never reached above his shoulder. The swipe of Mohinder’s hand went directly to Sebastian’s upper arm, and before his fist came a syringe; Mohinder plunged the needle deep into the side of Sebastian’s bicep, gripping the cylindrical object hard.

Sebastian had enough time to cry out and enough time to look down at what Mohinder had done. He had enough to time to stare, and see that there was nothing inside the syringe. Nothing but air. And when Sebastian lifted his eyes to Mohinder, he had enough time to see the man’s bleak look of determination when he pressed down viciously on the plunger. 

A smile seemed to try to creep onto Sebastian’s lips, but sooner than he could manage that, Sebastian twitched, a twitch that came over his entire body. A choking sound caught between a cough and a cry came from Sebastian’s throat, and he clutched at his chest. His body began to convulse, eyes seeming to bulge right out of his face as he dropped to the ground. Sebastian’s heart was palpitating, body straining against the oxygen bubbles that worked their way through his blood stream. Mohinder released the syringe, and Sebastian reached up, grasping onto Mohinder’s leg with his other hand as he struggled, lips moving as though to speak, fingers gripping until the nails might as well have snapped.

Then, all at once, Sebastian collapsed fully, eyes rolled back into his head as he hit the floor, curled up onto his side. Mohinder kicked Sebastian’s grip away, staring at the face of the man who had betrayed him. Staring at the first man whose life had fallen at Mohinder’s hand. He felt a queasy sort of unease, but held it back, letting the rapid beat of his heart wreak its havoc and calm in its own time. Better Sebastian than even one innocent person with abilities, he told himself.

Mohinder took a shuddering breath, stepping back from the body. He lifted his gaze to Elle, who stared, shocked at Mohinder’s actions. Her mouth hung open in a small ‘O’ and her eyes were slightly wide.

“You killed him…” she whispered. Elle leaned over the bed, head tilting slightly and her lips curling slowly. Suddenly she looked up again, and seemed to be looking at Mohinder with a sparkle behind those eyes, a sort of admiration. She smiled once again, and gave a breathless laugh. “You are _so_ cooler than I thought, Doc.”

“…” The feeling of dread in the pit of Mohinder’s stomach began to deepen.

 

The inside of the Company’s Hartsdale facility should have been as familiar to Peter Petrelli as it was to Noah Bennet. Peter looked around as the Haitian guided them in, seeing the strange walls with strange eyes, unaware that he had ever walked these halls. Unaware that they had ever held him captive.

“The next hall’s clear,” Sylar said to the Haitian, who walked in front at his side, just as serious about the job. “There’s someone coming from the East side, though.” Sylar warned, motioning to the right. The four of them rounded the next corner, and that was where the Haitian stopped. 

“We go our separate ways here,” the Haitian stated, looking meaningfully to each man. “Peter and I will get to the research lab and dispose of the viral material. Then we will take out part of the record system. Mister Sylar, Noah, I hope you find the people you are seeking.” The Haitian nodded briefly to them, and then motioned them off in the other direction, waving Peter over to him as they moved to the right. The real challenge was about to begin.

Bennet, of all people, was the one who started immediately to a run. Sylar gave the Haitian and Peter one last glance and then chased after Bennet, reaching out and grasping onto his shoulder. “Hey, wait up,” Sylar called, pulling the man back and to a stop.

Sylar was regarded with a heated glare behind horn-rimmed glasses. “We go our separate ways here, Sylar. Your business is not mine. You find Mohinder and get out of here. I’ll be fine on my own.”

Ah, Bennet, Sylar mused, always willing to die for his cause. “It’s not that. There’s someone else I have to find first, Bennet,” Sylar said seriously. “You’ve got the Haitian’s computer access codes, and you’re going to help me.” It was a statement, not a question. “Then you can take care of your business.”

 


End file.
